


First Law of Thermodynamics

by SilverMoon53



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 4x15 spoilers, Angst, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e15, Gen, I mean the episode wasn't but I was going to make this happy, SUFFER WITH ME, Spoilers, This isn't happy, but I don't know how tbh, post 4x15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 22:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9926813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMoon53/pseuds/SilverMoon53
Summary: The first thing she notices - before she notices the cold, or the darkness, or even the scent of stale air and dirt that doesn't quite mask the all-too-familiar scent of death and decay that somehow comes from her - is how cramped she is.





	

Pain is the first sensation Jemma knows upon waking in the Framework. The shock of waking in a new reality, one that isn’t real yet somehow is, sends her sitting bolt upright, and smashes her head into something far too solid. Her head slams back down onto the pillow, eyes seeing nothing but stars as pain floods her senses. She had hoped that the pain from the real world wouldn’t carry over, but it did and all she can do is lay as still as she can to let her body adjust. 

She breathes through her open mouth and takes stock of her body as she waits for her vision to clear. Fingers and toes wiggle, wrists and ankles turn and she rolls her shoulders as best she can lying down. Her body feels stiff, more wood plank than flesh and blood, and she’s reminded of the time she woke up after escaping the med pod at the bottom of the ocean, only this is much worse. At least nothing seems broken. 

Her vision is still dark, despite having been awake for a minute or so. She blinks, once, twice, again, hard enough this time to make shapes dance against her eyelids, but she still opens her eyes to nothing. “Bloody hell,” Jemma whispers to the still air, more irritated than concerned at this point. “Okay then. Let’s just figure out where I am, shall we?” She raises her hands to her face and holds them out. The fabric her fingers touch, just centimetres from her face, is soft and smooth. It yields easily enough, hanging limply from above. Jemma pushes higher and hits something solid. Fingernails scratch wood that does not seem to notice her touch as she pushed harder and harder. Her hands fly out to the side, wildly tracing the low ceiling to walls close enough that her shoulders almost brush them, to another just above her bruised head. She kicks her feet and legs and finds them just as confined as the rest of her.

“Breathe,” she tells herself, panic clamoring up inside of her, “breathe, Jemma.” The air tastes like morning breath only worse, far worse, choking her with the scent of her own death and dirt and despair. One shuddering breath after another, she forces the pace to slow. The limited air is already growing damp and oxygen-poor and her mind flits to the fact that you can breath after being buried in snow as long as you don’t let your breath melt the snow into ice in front of you and she wonders if that can somehow apply to dirt. 

Jemma knows, with the cold detachment of facts, that it is impossible to crawl out of a buried coffin. It requires inhuman (inhuman as in beyond what a human can produce, not as in Inhuman, although she supposes that might work too) strength just to break the coffin open, never mind the fight past the weight of six feet of dirt. Even assuming that she was able to start climbing her way out, she would run out of air long before reaching the surface. 

But when she was younger, she knew that there were no such things as aliens, and that humans are humans and never anything more, and that Earth was the only known planet that can support life. Besides, she had nearly died more than once before. If she could survive on an unknown planet while being hunted by an entity older than humanity, if she could survive being trapped on the bottom of the ocean, if she could survive being caught as an undercover SHIELD agent at HYDRA, if she could survive an alien virus and jumping from a plane, she can survive this. 

Besides, all those studies and tests took place in new coffins. _Who knows how old this one is?_ Jemma asks herself, not letting the thought go farther. She lets out a shaking breath and raises her hands to feel the top of the box. She searches again, this time for a weakness. The silk rips easily from a small tear and her fingers run against the smooth wood. _Thank god I didn’t ask to be cremated,_ she thinks, a bitter laugh forcing itself past her lips. Her fingers find a dent, but she pauses before striking. Slowly, carefully, she rips a strip of silk from the coffin and ties it around her face. It won’t do much, but it should help keep her nose and mouth clear. As satisfied as she can be given the circumstance, and with the heavy weight of time pressing down on her, she starts to claw at the dent above her. 

One minute passes and she has made no progress. The air is thin enough that she has to resist panting, knowing that doing so would cause her to panic even more. Her arms move sluggishly, her lower body tingling as lack of air starts to take effect. It’s warm in the coffin now, the dirt a good insulator, and Jemma wonders how long it’ll stay that way. Her mind flickers back and forth, trying to find a way out, but even it is slowing down. 

_“And remember,” she had told Daisy, “living in there might kill you, but dying in there definitely will.”_

Her arms slump next to her. _It’s too much, it’s all too much,_ she thinks, not noticing the tears sliding down her cheeks. _We should have taken more time, figured out where we were. I just hope Daisy’s okay._ Another bitter laugh tries to force its way out, but all she can manage is a weak cough. _Maybe this is better anyway. After all, this is supposed to be the perfect world, isn’t it?_ She can’t tell if her eyes are open or closed anymore, her body all but fully given up. 

Gasping, Jemma opens her mouth once more. “Though no energy in the universe is created, none is…”

She trails off and is still once more.


End file.
